23 January, 2020

New UK regulator should be freed to focus on audit

This will be an important year for the Financial Reporting Council as it continues

20 January, 2020

Workforce disclosures ‘are not providing the data investors want’

UK companies are failing to provide investors with adequate information about their employees, despite demands from regulation and corporate governance that workforce disclosures should be a central p...

9 January, 2020

FRC governance report calls for ‘greater focus’ on culture and strategy

UK companies are struggling with defining their purpose and “greater focus” is required on sustainability, stakeholder engagement, diversity and the importance of corporate culture, according to a...

23 December, 2019

2019: The year in governance

It’s that time we when we look back on 2019 and try to make sense of it all, impose some meaning and shape on the issues as they unfolded throughout the past 12 months. One thing we won’t do, h...

19 December, 2019

Brydon review: ‘true and fair’ must go while fraud becomes auditor responsibility

The long-standing “true and fair view" principle at the heart of accounting and auditing in the UK and many other jurisdictions could be changed following the government-commissioned Brydon review o...

16 December, 2019

FRC is ‘working on a UK version of Sarbanes–Oxley’

In 2002, in the wake of the Enron and WorldCom scandals, US lawmakers introduced stringent rules handing chief executives and finance directors legal responsibility for internal controls and better re...

5 December, 2019

Board performance evaluation: ticking a box or making a difference?

A new lens is being applied to board performance. The demands and expectations on board members are changing dramatically with a clear focus on how boards are making decisions and responding to issues...

3 December, 2019

Audit committees ‘need a makeover’ to help fix audit

The UK government may have placed audit reform on hold while it goes through the torture of a general election, but others continue to debate and call for improvements to audit committees. Not leas...

8 November, 2019

Auditors struggling to challenge management, says FRC

One of the frequent complaints made of auditors is that they get too cosy with their clients. A report from the UK’s audit watchdog has concluded that they are, at the very least, shy of challenging...

6 November, 2019

Boards gear up for section 172 disclosures

This is the year of corporate reporting. Its importance was underlined last week when the UK’s company reporting watchdog, the Financial Reporting Council (FRC), wrote to the chairs of audit committ...